Burning Man 2001 Labor Day Weekend Wed Night- Drove up, met a guy in the Safeway parking lot at Safeway packing his car with food at the same time. Left around 8:20. Got to Reno around 10:30, filled up gas tank again because I was a little paranoid about running low on fuel. Out of Reno, about half of the cars on the road appeared to be bound for burning man. Turning up the road towards Gorlan there was a thin caravan of cars, each headed North. This was exciting. Arriving, the greeters said there weren't many people who were new to burning man. The wife of my greeter knew me! Very Excited to see me. Couldn't find Stars Upon ours Camp, it was 2:30 am, camped at Pantaloon around 6:38 on the map. (anywhere I wanted) Tent was easy. Rows of outhouses. Ventured out, saw giant iron flaming heart (12 feet tall) and Burning man (maybe 40 feet tall). Slept at 3:40am Found my earplugs & was very relived. clanking zippers and flapping tent. Thursday - Awaken by the sunlight at 6am. went back to bed. Up at 9am, wandering around. Saw the goat with the red fabric anus. funny. Fiberglas. inside the tent dusty, through the nylon. got coffee at center camp, it was windy but I decided to try to wear the silver wings anyway, broke them, Icarus jokes. Made a silver sun shade out of the rest of the silver panels. Was beginning to feel that the back of my legs were burned. Visited with a remote control guy near my tent. Drove my car over & we had some speed challenges. Stumbled upon the supersnail tent & met Julian again and Jackie. Got a gift! Made plans to return with full wings. Left a note for Daniel at center camp & soon after tracked down their camp and Daniel! Walked around giving away ice with Pirate Daniel. Met Janus, he was promoting cockeyed.com got asked about the "rest of my costume" was a little saddened to think of my poor wings at home. Went to a "bbq" with Daniel's friends, sat listening to music. Strange to see entire computer setup in the desert. Got ready to go to a dance tent & took a ride out to the furthest egde of the city. Danced for about an hour and amazingly my chapped lips were starting to really bother me, plus it was very dusty and uncomfortable outside. I simply wasn't feeling sociable. Wanted to wander around a bit too. Ditched Daniel. windy & dusty. Neat stuff to see on the playa, about half of the costumes were thrown together with glow sticks and glitter, the rest were great. went home to tent. My silver sun shade had blown down. I secured it and went to sleep. Dust dust dust. On Friday morning I was ready to leave. I slept until about 9am, after being awoken several times by the flapping tent...even with the earplugs. The water truck came to spray down the roads & I ran outside and joined the 6 people running after it. Nice to have a funny shower like that. I walked back making muddy footprints and smiling. That was fun. I got dressed and went to get coffee. Saw the world's oldest naked man. Came home, worked on the sun shade, determined to block the morning sun tomorrow. A man rode up on his bicycle offering to trade mushrooms for whatever I had of value. I enjoyed his offer, but didn't want any mushrooms. I gave him a pack of American Spirit Cigarettes I had brought along to trade. The back of my calves were Ok, but I was keeping my eye on them. Strange to rub suntan lotion onto skin that is dirty. Pretty icky. Ate a dusty meal of Vienna sausages, cheese and crackers. Lots of Juice. Went out with the bike and winged hat to check out more art on the playa. Helped pull the styrofoam lion. Delays hurt the crowd dynamics. Got ice cream. Climbed a 4 story scaffolding tower, scary, but once on top I realized that the wind was calm enough to try & repair the wings. Biked home in mushy dusty streets & tried to fix the wings. I stood up and the wings broke, re-repaired them. Got to Daniels, and got called a "giant silver eagle" by a kid. 3 kids tryed to pull down Daniel's skirt. Heh heh. He was losing patience. The wings broke again, dragged them home. Twisting pvc problem that demanded a drill. I was worried. Finally fixed them but night was falling. 2 big tenous wings. Didn't wear my costume's sunglasses because they would have been too dark. I locked up my bike in preparation to leave it behind, the key was too dusty to work, so I had to clean it. 3 offers of rum, Clown juice, pill bottle party & interview guy. Kid gave me beads. Wings broke twice in the desert, but I was able to fix them. Decided to walk home & either frix or go out with the flare car. The wings were too large to bring into a party shade-structure. Got home and decided that this was my last night at burning man. It was midnight. I went out with the remote-control car and 12 flares. Went to a community burn platform & drove around for about an hour chasing people with the flare car. Fun. Very Dusty. Went to bed around 1.30am Saturday morning, woke up around 10am, windy, hot, but the shade structure was finally working. Terrific dust storm made me feel helpless and bored. Wanted to leave. Felt trapped. Packed inside tent, took down shade structure in high-wind with goggles, dust-mask and hat. Threw everything into the car. Tent was saturated with dust. One guy tried to get me to stay for the burning man. He encouraged me to stay at the center camp, but I was not convinced. I felt like one of the people that leave the basketball game before it is over. I drove out, didn't even wait to get coffee, just wanted to get home. about 20 minutes out I saw a massive traffic accident aftermath, with a triple-trailer truck on the side of the road. indian taco on the side of the road. Cold grape sode tasted great! Got a speeding ticket before I got out of Nevada, 70 in a 55. Lame. At the agriculture stop, my car was totally covered in dust, he said, "is this from that burning man thing"? And I said "yeah". He said, "go ahead".